Monday, July 14, 2008

FREE OUTWARD BOUND EXCURSIONS OIF/OEF VETS

Outward Bound Wilderness Excursions for OEF/OIF Veterans

Outward Bound, an international non-profit outdoor education program, is offering fully funded outdoor adventure excursions to all OEF/OIF veterans. It doesn't matter what your current military status is (active, inactive,discharged, retired) - you're eligible to attend as long as you deployed in support of OEF/OIF combat operations while in the military. These five-day excursions offer adventure activities such as backpacking, rock climbing, canyoneering, canoeing, and dog sledding in beautiful wilderness areas in Maine, Texas, Colorado, California, and Minnesota. Scheduled courses from Sep 08-Feb 09 are listed below, and future courses will be scheduled soon.

All expedition costs for lodging, equipment, food, and instruction are completely funded by a multi-million dollar Sierra Club grant, including the participants' round-trip transportation between home and the wilderness site. The excursion is offered at no cost to the participant. To sign up for one of the pre-scheduled courses, please contact Doug Hayward at 1-866-669-2362, ext. 8387, or simply e-mail him at

For those who try the OWB excursion at Leadville Colorado . . they will be backpacking and rock climbing in and around some great military history.

Camp Hale was up above Leadville and the base from which our 10th Mountain Division and Mountain Training Command in the '40's-'60's so ably trained our soldiers to fight in high altitude conditions. 10,000 feet in altitude and above!

My father was an instructor there in the early 50's.

Anyone who signs up for that should ask to backpack and rock climb around there!

We are asking for your help. As you may know, Outward Bound, a national non-profit, is offering free wilderness expeditions to OEF/OIF Veterans. When we announced the program in 2008, we had an overwhelming response. At that time we were unable to serve all those interested as we did not fully expect how many Veterans would be interested in the opportunity. Since then we have been able to acquire additional funding and are expanding the program. However, we are now having trouble spreading the word again and reaching these Veterans with the message that this is available again.

Because you have the ability to speak directly to the Veterans, we wanted to ask you if you would be able to include the attached information in your blog. We so desperately want to be sure Veterans know about this FREE service and opportunity to help create a smoother reintegration into civilian life and non-combat redeployment.

Please see more information below and contact me if you need more information or are able to help.

Overview: Outward Bound, a 45-year old national non-profit outdoor, adventure-educationorganization, is looking for OEF and OIF Veterans, interested in participating in fully-funded reintegration wilderness expeditions. Adventures are physically, mentally andemotionally challenging and work to build the self-confidence, pride, trust and communication skills necessary to successfully return to their families and communitiesfollowing war time service.

Goals of the program are to provide a positive outdoor experiences for military veterans and their families that will enable them to experience the healing benefits of the natural world and benefit from quality environmental education.

Who: Available to all OEF or OIF Veterans who were deployed to Iraq and/or Afghanistan, pending medical screening

What: A 5-7 day Wilderness Expedition: may include backpacking, rock climbing, canoeing, dogsledding, sailing, sea kayaking and white water rafting

How: What sets Outward Bound apart is that the goal is personal growth. The wilderness and the skills learned to deal with it are simply a vehicle for growth.

Cost: Veterans will not be responsible for cost of expedition including round-trip stateside transportation to course site. Funding provided by the Military Family Outdoor Initiative Project, a joint project of the Sierra Club and The Sierra Club Foundation.